Luke Reilly's Top 30 Games of all Time

When I turned 30 last year I briefly toyed with the idea of putting together my top 30 games of all time. It was a slow Saturday night and my wife was out. I’m not sure what purpose it would have served, other than a great refresher for me if I was to ever be fished out of the ocean with substantial memory loss after a yacht assassination gone pear-shaped. Once I figured out who I was at least I’d be able to discover what games I already liked.

Then I thought I should do movies, too. And TV shows. And albums! And then I thought that sounded like a lot of work for no reason and just watched Die Hard with a Vengeance instead.

Just over a year on, however, and I’ve been handed a valid reason to put this list together after all. My 30 favourite games are below and I admit some of them are a little off-the-beaten-path. The year marked is the year the game was released, although it may not always match the year I first played it. I've also just listed the platform I played it on but many are available on several.

Finally, apologies for the length but I wrote this on a plane.

Australia is a long plane trip from anywhere.

30

Lemmings

Released 1991 PC

We got our first computer in 1993, or 1994. I can’t quite remember. It was just as I was coming to the end of primary school. My dad brought it home with a copy of Strike Commander. Strike Commander had Totally Awesome pack art and rocking loadout screens. Unfortunately it proved completely impossible for us to play and was ultimately a massive waste of his money. Following that, a guy my dad knew turned up at our house with a whole bunch of games we could play. Lemmings was one of them.

I loved Lemmings. I still do, really. Lemmings is timeless. There’s a certain purity when it comes to the strategy of Lemmings. Lemmings simply walk until they’re told otherwise. Everything else is on you. It’s not the game’s fault if they don’t make it; it’s yours. If you don’t give them the right instructions at the right time, they will perish. They can’t think for themselves so, without your guidance, they’re as good as dead. I imagine this is how schoolteachers feel any time they need to have their class cross a street.

I always felt bad for the blockers, though. I feel like they got a raw deal. Without their valuable help your Lemmings would be walking off ledges and into lava constantly. Blockers have surely saved more Lemming lives than any other. And what do they get for their efforts? Exploded.

29

Hitman: Blood Money

Released 2006 Xbox 360

I love the Hitman games. They reward patience and creativity. They’re replayable, they’re slow-paced, and they’re unique. Blood Money is probably the one I look upon most fondly. It certainly contains the majority of my favourite levels. So sinister and yet so satisfying.

28

Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy!

Released 1991 PC

We actually didn’t have any of the popular home consoles when I was a kid, just a PC, so my platforming history is informed by that. I played a lot of shareware because it didn’t cost my parents anything. It’s why I love Commander Keen, Crystal Caves, and the original Duke Nukum (with an extra U) and Duke Nukem II instead of Sonic or Mario.

I’m still a little hazy on whether this is one game, or two. Goodbye, Galaxy! featured two “episodes” (“Secret of the Oracle” and “The Armageddon Machine”). Secret of the Oracle is my favourite, at any rate.

I love everything about it, actually. The simple, oblique 3D backgrounds (which were a huge step up from the original Keen games), the oddball enemy designs (including the Dopefish), and the hopelessly charming sound effects that are burnt into my synapses.

Basically I’ll side with an eight-year-old kid genius in a Packers helmet over a moustachioed plumber every day of the week.

27

V8 Supercars 3

Released 2006 PlayStation 2

I doubt there’ll ever be a racing game quite like V8 Supercars 3 (or TOCA Race Driver 3, or DTM Race Driver 3, depending on what part of the world you were born in). Jam-packed with official championships from around the world, from DTM, to Indy, to V8 Supercars (naturally), it boasted a stunning array of racing. Done with touring car racing? How about sprint cars? Or open-wheelers? Or rally? Or, hell, what about Supertrucks? Not your style? What about monster trucks, then?

My hope is that Grid Autosport recaptures some of this, but V8 Supercars 3 will always hold a place near my heart for being the definitive instalment in a game series that hit closer to home for me than any other. Literally. Before it was torn down, one of the regular tracks on the V8 Supercars calendar was just a five minute drive from my home. Oran Park. We were close enough to hear the racing from our yard. It was a true thrill having that track in a videogame.

26

B-17 Flying Fortress

Released 1992 PC

I can’t remember how this game arrived in my house. It was all boxed-up and official-like, complete with its gigantic, 200-or-so page instruction manual. I don’t know who bought it. I just remember loving B-17 Flying Fortress way more than any 12-year-old probably should have loved an unforgiving and slow-paced WWII bomber management and flight simulator. While the console platformers of the early ’90s were busy defining an entire generation of gamers I was spending hours plodding through the skies above a featureless, olive drab facsimile of Occupied Europe, dropping bombs on the little grey boxes that apparently formed the basis of Germany’s military and industrial muscle. I was a weird kid.

WWII heavy bombers fascinate me. My great uncle died piloting a Lancaster in Bomber Command during WWII, shot down in November 1944, and I’ve remained in awe of his story since it was relayed to me as a kid. The Lanc is a four-engine heavy not unlike the B-17. They’re not nimble. They’re big and slow and rarely change direction. Their crews remain resolute in the face of flak and enemy fighters, knowing full well they’re really just a big, juicy target ambling across the sky.

MicroProse’s B-17 Flying Fortress tapped into my respect for them.

I remember it being tricky, starting up the engines and taxiing to take off. I remember the struggle of trying to handle wounded crew members during fighter attacks. I also remember the frustration of flying deep into Europe only to be shot down and captured, or killed, and have to restart the mission. I remember the sound didn’t really work properly. But overall I remember loving every minute. MicroProse put out plenty of other great flight sims during the ’90s, like 1942: The Pacific Air War and European Air War, but I couldn’t even attempt to calculate the amount of hours I spent on this one.

25

Kirby's Dream Land 2

Released 1995 Game Boy

My overall lack of interest in Sonic or Mario is certainly largely due to a lack of meaningful exposure as a kid, but I don’t remember ever feeling like I was missing out. We had more games on our PC than I could have ever played. Growing up I did have regular access to two other platforms, however. One was my parents’ Atari 2600 (which had all the staples: Asteroids, Space Invaders, Frogger, etc.) but it was an enormous pain in the arse to tune to the TV. The other was a Game Boy, which I shared with my sisters.

We never had that many games for it so we thrashed the few we did have. Tetris was obvious. I don’t think there’s ever been a Game Boy without a copy of Tetris less than three metres away from it at any given time. Super Mario Land was fine but I always thought it was a bit imprecise. Gargoyle’s Quest was total bollocks.

My favourite by a huge margin was always Kirby’s Dream Land 2. I could play that game until the batteries went dead. It was a pretty nuanced platformer, really. Kirby had plenty of abilities and powers to juggle, plus there were the animals you could ride cross the nicely varied levels. You know, Rick the Hamster and… the owl, and… the fish thing, which I’m sure both had names too. At any rate, it was all pretty impressive for a game running on hardware with computing power I suspect is roughly equivalent to today’s singing birthday cards.

More than anything else, Kirby’s Dream Land 2 reminds me of my childhood Christmas holidays. We’d spend several weeks away in a caravan, so whenever the weather was too foul to swim or ride a bike Kirby’s Dream Land 2 was always the best way to pass the time.

24

Urban Chaos: Riot Response

Released 2006 PlayStation 2

Urban Chaos: Riot Response was a game that dared players to dismiss it without even laying a finger on the case. It had a bargain-bin name, which had been changed several times during development. It was released on May 2006 on PS2 and Xbox, which was six months after the Xbox 360 launched. It was the debut game of an unknown developer, so we truly had nothing upon which to even base an estimate of its quality.

To this day, however, Urban Chaos: Riot Response remains a game that reminds me to refrain from jumping to early conclusions.

I’ve played and genuinely loved plenty of great, triple A shooters. Halo: Combat Evolved, Rainbow Six: Vegas and the original Red Faction immediately spring to mind. However, it’s the more underappreciated and less-lucrative gems like The Darkness, Cold Winter, Black, The Chronicles of Riddick, XIII, and No One Live Forever I look at slightly more fondly. I feel like Urban Chaos: Riot Response is one of the most underrated games of all time. The action was fierce and bloody, the visual effects were excellent and the gameplay was extremely well-honed.

Batman: Arkham Asylum may have showed the wider world what Rocksteady was capable of, but anyone who played Urban Chaos: Riot Response already knew.

Did I mention it was developed by Rocksteady?

Now I have your attention, right?

23

Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far

Released 1997 PC

I don’t really play strategy games. I mean, I have played them. I remember having a lot of fun with Command & Conquer: Red Alert for PSone but all I did was enter the money cheat and create giant armies of attack dogs. But something about Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far has really stuck with me. Underneath its simple, 2D, top-down visuals was a deep, tactical experience. Every solider has an identity, and juggling their morale (and their ammo) requires constant attention. It endlessly irritates me I can’t get this game running properly on my current PC.

22

Medal of Honor

Released 1999 PlayStation

Medal of Honor is what I was playing while everybody else was still addicted to GoldenEye 64. You have to keep in mind I was basically stepping directly from Wolfenstein 3D to Medal of Honor so I was utterly entranced. I remember the sound first and foremost; the harsh bark of an M1 Garand, or the thundering rumble of a mounted .50 cal. It also taught me several German phrases, although none of them were useful in any way. Der Amerikaner hat hundekuchen in der tasche!

The multiplayer may have only been two-player, but honestly it was the most fun I had with a split-screen FPS until four-player Halo some years later.

I was a huge fan of the sequel too, Underground, which took a unique approach to the genre by focusing on the French Resistance and featuring a female lead character who was front-and-centre on the box art (can you imagine that with Battlefield or Call of Duty today? Unfortunately I can’t).

21

Cricket 97: Ashes Tour Edition

Released 1997 PC

I’m not much of a sports gamer, but it’s primarily because the sports I like most are generally underrepresented in video games. Aside from the likes of Fight Night Champion, with its awesome story mode that appealed to my love of fight films like Rocky or Warrior, my favourite sports games are generally more modest ones developed for smaller markets. ARL 96, EA’s last rugby league game, was a firm favourite of mine as a kid, but cricket is what I like most. Shane Warne Cricket ’99 (or Brian Lara Cricket, depending on which side of the planet you purchased it on) is the stuff of legend amongst my mates. Ashes Cricket 2009 had me wooed for a bit, although I’m sure that was mainly due to the use of the iconic Channel 9 cricket theme I’ve heard on TV in Australia every summer for my entire life. Recently, Don Bradman Cricket 14’s deep career mode and nuanced bowling system has me strangely smitten; honestly, it’s basically all I’m playing at the moment.

My fondest cricket game memories, however, tend to come from Cricket 97. Looking at it now it’s an entirely horrible cocktail of 3D stadiums, sprite-based players, and clunky and unforgiving action, but way back as a 13-year-old none of that really mattered. All that mattered is that Ritchie Benaud appeared during the game in full-motion video interludes and it had a manual appeal button, so I could spam “HOWZAT!” as fast as my fingers would allow.

I never owned this game myself; I only ever played it hunched over a shared keyboard at a mate’s house. He had all the cool stuff. A pool, a beat-up Corolla to bomb around his back paddock in, and a sweet PC that was far more state of the art than the one my family had. Looking back, I’m not sure why I didn’t just try to move in.